Gonna Make It (TV series)

Synopsis

Su Xiao Xiao (Julie Tan) was born in a single-parent family. After giving birth to her at 18 years old, her mother (May Phua) abandoned her in the care of her maternal grandparents (Jin Yinji, Zhang Wei). She never knew who her father was.

Her grandparents love her very much, yet they do not know how to discipline her. She has never liked studying, but she has a strange interest in hair-cutting. She was often unable to hold back from cutting the hair of female classmates sitting in front of her in class, making the girls cry. She received many warnings, yet she does as she pleases. None of her classmates dared to sit in front of her.

Without her grandparents’ knowledge, she secretly begs the lady boss of the nearby hair salon to take her in. The lady boss Monica (Cynthia Koh) thinks this is ridiculous, but says yes just to oblige her. Xiao Xiao is dedicated to her craft, even saving up her pocket money to buy practice wigs. She ends up dropping out of school, so her grandparents give in. During Xiao Xiao’s days as an apprentice, Monica treats her as cheap labour and does not teach her any hairstyling techniques.

Before she can pick up any skills, she gets to know an idle young man, Li Fei Long (Edwin Goh), a righteous street gangster. Fei Long sees her being bullied by Monica’s sleazy husband Ken, who ‘teaches’ her massage techniques only to take advantage of her. Fei Long stands up for her and gives Ken a good beating.

Xiao Xiao starts to get closer to Fei Long and his bunch of gangster friends.

She later takes a stab for Fei Long unintentionally during a gang fight. Fei Long regards her as his benefactor after that. During this incident, she witnesses her good friend being killed, and sees the family of the victim crying in mourning. Due to her involvement in this incident, she is sentenced to jail for three years. She completely changes, and works hard to improve herself. She begins to put her heart into hairdressing. During her trying to do well in the hairdressing business, she meets Oscar Yang Yuan Shuai (Xu Bin) and they both fell in love.

After her release from jail, she decides to start afresh. But Fei Long and the gang refuse to leave her alone. Fei Long is either trying to repay her for saving him, or expressing his feelings for her, but she wants to distance herself from her errant past. Unable to avoid them completely, she decides to tries her best to guide them positively.

With a criminal record, she finds it difficult to reenter society and find a job, until she meets the hairstylist, Liu Ah Man (Bryan Wong).

Ah Man is a famous hairstylist with a notoriously bad temper. Many apprentices and staff have left the salon, unable to tolerate his temper.

When Ah Man first sees Xiao Xiao, he can tell she has a passion for hairdressing and decides to accept her as his disciple. Ah Man is very strict with her, and puts her under rigid training starting with the most menial chores. She goes from misunderstanding him, to clashing with him countless times, to finally building a strong mentor-and-student relationship with him.

Ah Man passes away and leaves the salon to Xiao Xiao in his will. The condition is she must never sell the salon, no matter how bad the situation is.

Oscar Yang Yuan Shuai (Xu Bin) was born in a family of doting aunts & female cousins. As the only son of the Yangs’, he is spoilt by the women in his life. On top of that, he has always excelled in everything. This causes him to be extremely self-confident. His only weakness is an acute fear of escalators, stemming from a horrific accident in his childhood.

After returning from his studies in the US, Oscar’s aunts want him to takeover operating their hair salon business. He decides to revamp the business, and develop a one-stop beauty service.

As the two clash with each other, they begin to admire each other, and slowly fall for each other. Xiao Xiao, Fei Long, Oscar and his infatuated cousin Zhang Wen Ya (Ya Hui) become tangled up in a complicated love quadrangle...

Trivia

Overseas broadcast

This drama is the fourteenth drama on Malaysian satellite television Astro to be broadcast concurrently with Singapore, two weeks' behind the original telecast.

2014 Accolades

Gonna Make It is nominated for 5 awards in the Star Awards 20.